Supercritical water gasification of Eucalyptus grandis and related pyrolysis char: Effect of feedstock composition.

Eucalyptus grandis (E. grandis) wood and char products derived from pyrolysis of E. grandis wood, were gasified in supercritical water at 450°C - with and without the use of a homogeneous (K2CO3) and heterogeneous (Ni/Al2O3-SiO2) catalyst. Gas yields and gasification efficiencies were measured experimentally and compared to calculated thermodynamic equilibrium values, specifically considering the effects of the O/C ratio and volatile matter content of the feed material. Thermodynamically, feed material with lower O/C ratios (0.22) typically resulted in higher CH4 yields (30mol/kgfeed,dry) and gasification efficiencies (188%). However, experimentally, feed material with lower O/C ratios and lower volatile matter resulted in the lowest CH4 yields and gasification efficiencies. Furthermore, a linear relationship between the carbon efficiency (CE) and both the volatile matter content and O/C ratio of the feed material was found to hold true in both catalytic and non-catalytic experiments.